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BEING A CHRISTIAN. 



By Rev. Jas. A. Duncan, 

Of /Ae S&o/ston Conference. 




JAN 1 * 185 

of CoV 

TWO Co 



BEING A CHRISTIAN. 



BY REV. JAS. A. DUNCAN, 

Of the Holston Conference. 



Nashville, Tenn. : 

Publishing House of the M. E. Church, South. 

Barbee & Smith, Agents. 

.897. 



. IP 



The Library 
of Congress 



WASHINGTON 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1897, 

By Jas. A. Duncan, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



preface* 

An old writer once said: "There is nothing 
more talked about than religion; nothing less un- 
derstood; nothing more neglected." If the ser- 
mon of Anthony Farrindon in which these words 
occur had been reported in yesterday's newspaper 
instead of having been uttered two hundred years 
ago, they would not have been better adapted to 
describe the conditions surrounding us. What is 
the Christian religion ? and what does it mean to b<: 
i Christian? These questions have been asked 
.'ind have been variously answered, for nearly two 
thousand years; and yet, though often answ r ered 
adequately, there are many still who do not seem 
to know what being a Christian is. One thing 
makes it easier for this question to be answered 
to-day than ever before; and that is, there are, I 
believe, more earnest, sincere inquirers of the way 
of life. If these pages shall be of even a small 
degree of benefit to such, my purpose will be ac- 
complished. Jas. A. Duncan. 

Kansas City, Mo., May 13, 1S96. 

(3) 



Contents* 

Chapter I. Page 
Christian Consciousness 7 

Chapter II. 
A Christian Conscience 20 

Chapter III. 
Christian Nourishment 31 

Chapter IV. 
Christian Growth 43 

Chapter V. 
Christian Culture 59 

Chapter VI. 
Christian Inspiration 77 

Chapter VII. 
Christian Activity 86 

(5) 



Beino a Christian, 

CHAPTER I. 
Christian Consciousness. 

WE are justly proud of our age, and 
highly appreciative of the great ad- 
vancement in every direction which 
characterizes it. The trees our fathers plant- 
ed and tended with so much care are to-day 
bearing abundant fruit, of which it is our 
privilege to eat. There is one thing to be 
seen in this day for which we should be pe- 
culiarly grateful : that there is now a clearer 
apprehension of the meaning of the mission 
of Christ to mankind, and a better under- 
standing of the duties, privileges, and pur- 
poses of a Christian life. 

At first sight it seems not a little strange 
that so long a time should have elapsed be- 
fore the world should know what it means 
to be a Christian, and that even now there 
are false notions respecting it ; but reflec- 
tion will show that after all it is not so great- 

(7) 



8 



BEING A CHRISTIAN. 



ly to be wondered at. Christ brought to the 
world the greatest thoughts it has ever been 
man's lot to contemplate, and laid before hu- 
manity a plan of life so much higher and so 
much more comprehensive than any hither- 
to thought of that it would have been strange 
if it had been fully grasped at first. Some- 
times we are told that this is not true — that 
there is nothing new, nothing original in the 
teachings of Jesus. Men cite the sayings 
of the rabbis, the teachings of the Old Tes- 
tament, the sacred books of the Indians, 
Persians, Chinese, and others, culling from 
them certain things like some of the utter- 
ances of the Master, and telling us that in- 
asmuch as Zoroaster, Buddha, and Confu- 
cius uttered these thoughts they are not to be 
considered as original when uttered by Je- 
sus ; that these truths which the Christian 
world has claimed as new must be put down 
really as old. No truth is new. All truth 
is as old as God, and he is eternal. That is 
new to the world, however, which comes to 
the world in a light in which it was never 
before seen on earth, and gives to men ideas 
such as were not before entertained, and 



CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS. 9 

could not have been entertained had not the 
truth been put in just that light. This is what 
Jesus did, and his originality lies in this. 

He gave the world the real philoso- 
pher's stone. Chemists and alchemists have 
dreamed of a something by which all base 
metals should be transmuted into gold. They 
did not know that their dream was a proph- 
ecy, and that One would come who would 
more than fulfill it : that great truths would 
become the possession of mankind through 
a teacher come from God which should have 
power to transmute things which now seem 
base into priceless treasures ; take the bitter 
experiences of life and sweeten them, and 
fill with more than a golden glory the dark, 
narrow walls of the grave itself. These 
same students, seeing so much of sickness 
and death, felt that something better must 
belong to the race, and sought far and wide 
for a precious elixir which should give end- 
less life to mortals. This elixir was more 
than found when life and immortality were 
brought to light in the gospel. The wildest 
dream of the most sanguine philosopher did 
not comprehend a tithe of what Jesus meant 



IO BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

when he said : " I am come that they might 
have life, and that they might have it more 
abundantly." 

When we see thus even in small meas- 
ure something of the greatness of the truths 
brought to man by Jesus, I do not think it 
is in the least surprising that the world has 
taken so many centuries, even under the in- 
fluence of these very teachings, to come to a 
right understanding of their meaning. 

You remember that beautiful story of the 
two sad-hearted disciples walking to Em- 
maus. They were talking, you know, about 
the death of Jesus. They had watched with 
ever increasing interest a life which was in 
so many respects incomprehensible to them. 
At times he appeared to be only a peasant, 
mingling freely with the multitude, or sit- 
ting at some humble table, while at other 
times there was so much about him that was 
kingly that his rightful place seemed to be a 
throne. He had withdrawn from them on 
one occasion when they would have forced 
a crown upon him, while only a few days 
since he had declared that if the people 
should be forbidden to sing their glad ho- 



CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS. II 

sauna songs about him the very stones on 
the roadside would cry out. More and more 
had they been impressed with him, until 
they had become almost certain that he was 
indeed the Messiah. " This is He who is to 
redeem Israel," they said among themselves ; 
and their hearts bounded with a great joy. 
But now their hopes are dashed to the ground. 
It is true that a vision of angels is reported 
to have been seen by some of the women 
who had identified themselves with him, but 
such a story was hardly to be credited. No, 
( he was crucified, dead, and buried. He had 
been laid in Joseph's tomb in the garden, and 
with him w r ere buried those high hopes which 
only a few days since had so gladdened their 
hearts. They still have the precious memory 
of his self-sacrificing life, but that is all. 

While these disciples are thus talking they 
are joined by a seeming stranger, who asks 
what it is that makes them so sad. Amazed 
that anyone could ask such a question, when, 
from their point of view, there is only one 
thing to talk about, they tell him -about Je- 
sus, and what their hopes had been. He 
then begins to talk to them about the Christ, 



12 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

interesting them more and more deeply, un- 
til Emmaus is reached. They persuade him 
to enter the house with them, and together 
they sit down to the evening meal. Their 
heads are bowed while the stranger gives 
thanks ; but almost before he has uttered 
the last word of the thanksgiving, they look 
up in astonishment — for only One ever gave 
thanks like that — and find that he is gone. 

It is enough. The old, wrong notions 
about Christ have disappeared. They are 
still disciples, but there is something in the 
discipleship which it never had before. They 
have had a view of a larger Christ, still hu- 
man, but also, as never before, divine. They 
hasten at once with the glad news to their 
comrades, and tell them that they have seen 
Jesus. They have now for the first time a 
real Christian consciousness. 

There is no mysterious process about this. 
They have seen Jesus as he really is. Not 
merely the man of flesh and blood, looked 
upon with the eye of the flesh ; but the 
Christ of God, who has given himself to the 
world as well as for the world ; who has 
solved the problem of human life by living 



CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS. 13 

as men should live, and has come back from 
beyond the grave with the first full assur- 
ance of immortality ever given to man. 
This is the history of the dawn of Chris- 
tian consciousness in every soul. Thomas 
had know r n Christ during his ministry, but 
only after the resurrection did he see him 
really ; then, falling at his feet, he said, 
" My Lord, and my God." Saul of Tarsus 
knew of the man Jesus. He knew what the 
followers of the Nazarene were doing in the 
world. He had seen the face of Stephen 
when it glowed with a " light never seen on 
land or sea," and he had determined as a 
consistent Jew to do all in his power to up- 
root the terrible heresies this man's teaching 
had planted. On his way to Damascus there 
came to him a revelation of the truth. To 
the voice out of the brightness he said, " Who 
art thou ? " and the answer came, " I am Je- 
sus." He saw the Master then for the first 
time, and the Christian consciousness born 
at that moment never left him. 

Christian consciousness, then, comes to us 
when we first see Christ as he is. Living 
in a Christian land, we believe in Christ. 



14 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

There is not an article of the Christian faith 
about which even a small minority of us 
have many doubts, yet, at the same time, 
many are aware that they have no Christian 
consciousness. An indirect or an evasive an- 
swer is usually given to the question, u Are 
you a Christian ? " There should be no 
more evasion to such a question than there 
is by the physician who is asked, "Are you 
a physician ? " He has only one answer to 
such a question ; the physician consciousness 
is his, and his answer, without any ostenta- 
tion or lack of humility, is, " Yes." In or- 
der for us to have this consciousness, we 
must do as the two disciples at Emmaus 
and as Thomas did, and as Saul did : we 
must see Jesus for ourselves, not merely look 
at him through the eyes of others. 

What is it to see Jesus? To see him is 
first of all to see man. Christ delighted in 
calling himself the Son of man. We are 
the children of individuals. We belong to 
a nation, a race, an age. He is the child of 
humanity, and belongs to all time. All the 
possibilities of the race are summed up in 
him. He shows us what man may become, 



CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS. I 5 

what God in his plans for the race designs 
him to become. Jesus is not to be looked upon 
merely as an ideal man ; he is the real man. 

The first step, then, toward the possession 
of a Christian consciousness is seeing what 
humanity is, what it means to be a man. 
Yon see Christianity is not some other- 
worldly, strange thing. It belongs to this 
world. Indeed, it begins in a true self -con- 
sciousness. When one looks at Jesus as the 
Son of man, and recognizes the fact that he 
is looking at his own elder brother; sees 
himself as akin to him, to be like whom is 
the proudest distinction that can come to a 
human being, and purposes in his heart to 
keep before himself the truth thus recog- 
nized, he has then within himself the begin- 
nings of Christian consciousness. 

But it is more than this. Jesus is not only 
to be seen as the Son of man, but also as the 
Son of God. As we see humanity when we 
see him as the child of the race, and have 
then for the first time an adequate concep- 
tion of man, so we see God when we see 
him as God's Son, and get that idea of the 
divine Fatherhood which without the Son- 



l6 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

ship it would be impossible for us ever to 
have formed. It is not upon an isolated fact 
that we look. As we see him, the Son of 
the Father, we are also to see ourselves still 
as his brethren, therefore children of God 
ourselves. It is when we thus see Christ, 
and because we see him for the first time 
ourselves, that Christian consciousness is 
born within us, the consciousness that " I 
am a child of God." The recognition of 
this fact is the foundation of a Christian 
life, and all subsequent growth Christ ward 
is dependent upon keeping this truth con- 
sciously before us. 

This consciousness is never for a moment 
lost by Jesus. When he was only a child, it 
was the Father's, his Father's business that 
concerned him. When baptized of John, the 
encouraging voice was the voice speaking 
from the Father to the Son. The tempta- 
tion in the wilderness was a temptation to 
make him lose sight of this ; hence, " If thou 
be the Son of God " was the form the temp- 
tation took. But never did he allow this 
precious possession to depart from him. In 
the hour of agony in Gethsemane his cry is 



CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS. I 7 

to his Father, and because of the conscious- 
ness that God was his Father he could drink 
of the cup if the Father willed it. On the 
cross it was " Father, forgive them." Had 
Jesus lost this consciousness of Sonship, he 
could not have lived his life ; nor can we as 
his disciples live the Christian life without it. 
Christian consciousness deepens and be- 
comes a greater force in the life in propor- 
tion as we become like the Master. In order 
to keep it fully alive, we are to live with 
him. He stands by the side of every child 
of man waiting for recognition, and when 
recognized asks for constant companionship. 
A man has in life some supreme purpose. 
He intends to be a painter, a sculptor, a me- 
chanic, a builder, an explorer. In all that 
comes to him in life, in all that he enters 
into, the thought that he is to be this thing 
is present. It underlies all his actions, and 
explains all his conduct. Whatever he does, 
his artist consciousness or mechanic con- 
sciousness is ever present. So in the Chris- 
tian life Christ is all in all. The conscious- 
ness that we are his disciples, students of 
his life, followers of his doctrines, personal 



l8 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

friends of himself, children of his Father, is 
to underlie all our actions, to be the real foun- 
dation of all our plans. 

If this is done, then we will not be harassed 
with doubts. Can you conceive of a question 
which St. Paul would have thought stranger 
than the question, "Are you a Christian? " 
Christian consciousness was his just as mer- 
chant consciousness belongs to the merchant. 

When this is ours, temptation loses much 
of its force. Every temptation is a tempta- 
tion to possess ourselves of something more 
desirable than what we now possess, and 
which we can only obtain, so it is made to 
appear, by the means the temptation sug- 
gests. If we have the consciousness that 
we are the Father's children, and have the 
conception of the love of that Father which 
those have who see his character as it shines 
forth in the face of Jesus Christ, will we 
not say to the temptation : " No ; my Father 
knows what is best for his child, and if he 
wants me to have this thing I will have it 
some day pure and clean from his own holy 
hand." Suppose the temptation is to get 
wealth, or power, or position, by a means 



CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS. 19 

which we know to be wrong : do you not 
see what a tower of strength we have in the 
consciousness that we are the children of a 
Father who proposes to give to each one of 
us just that which will enable us most effi- 
ciently to do the work in his world which 
we were created to perform ? 

This guards us, too, against envy and jeal- 
ousy, and saves us from all littleness. The 
consciousness that he was the Son of God 
only made Jesus realize as no other had done 
that all men were the children of God. So 
he talks of " your Father which is in heav- 
en," and teaches us to pray, " Our Father." 
So when we have this consciousness we will 
rejoice in the advancement of every man. 
We will rejoice in every discovery, in every 
forward movement, in every message we re- 
ceive telling of one who has come to him- 
self, and is now conscious that he, too, is the 
child of God. How full Christian conscious- 
ness makes life ! How rich we know our- 
selves to be, "heirs of God, and joint heirs 
with Jesus Christ our Lord " ! 



CHAPTER II. 
A Christian Conscience. 

THEODORE PARKER says that 
when he was a little child not more 
than five years of age he went out on 
the farm with his father, who, after taking 
him some distance, sent him back to the 
house alone. The way home lay near a 
pond, on whose bank were flowers. At- 
tracted by a beautiful rhododra he went 
toward it, and when he reached it saw a 
small tortoise sunning himself at its roots. 
Taking up a stick he raised it to strike the 
tortoise, when he seemed to hear a voice 
telling him not to do it. The voice was so 
clear and the utterance so distinct that he 
was startled, and dropping the stick he ran 
to the house and told his mother what had 
happened, asking her at the same time to 
tell him what the voice was. She told him 
that it was conscience, and that if he always 
heeded it he would grow up to be a good 
man, but that if he failed to listen to it he 
(20) 



A CHRISTIAN CONSCIENCE. 21 

would not be in life what she desired her 
boy to become. 

There is within each one of us a some- 
thing, usually called conscience, which occu- 
pies the position of policeman in our moral 
life. As in the story told above, it is large- 
ly the duty of this officer to arrest when a 
course of conduct is proposed that is not 
right. This policeman, however, is like 
that officer sometimes is in the cities : capa- 
ble of being influenced by his surroundings, 
and by what he soon learns is expected of 
him. He is by no means infallible, nor is 
his uneducated standard always high. The 
standard of this moral policeman is the 
highest standard prevailing among the peo- 
ple in the midst of whom he lives. The 
story told above of Theodore Parker could 
not have been told of a native savage. 
This child's conscience was one w r hich had 
been quickened by all the teaching he had 
received from a godly mother from the time 
he could attend to anything to the day of the 
event I have spoken of ; but had he on the 
other hand been in the habit of seeing things 
killed from the first dawning of conscious- 



22 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

ness until he was five years old, he would 
never have heard a voice telling him not to 
kill the tortoise. 

Conscience is thus affected by our sur- 
roundings, by the standard of piety that 
prevails about us. This is why in certain 
communities forms of amusement that you 
perhaps have been taught were wrong, and 
which your conscience protested against 
your indulging in when you were tempted 
to do so, are entered into heartily by people 
in whose integrity you have perfect confi- 
dence, and whose Christian profession you 
believe to be sincere, without any qualms of 
conscience on their part whatever. Or per- 
haps, in your own case, there are things 
which you have been told since you became 
a professing Christian that you must not do, 
and you have been unable to see why, your 
conscience in nowise protesting against the 
doing of these things. 

The unimpaired conscience of anyone is 
the high-water mark of ethical life in his 
community, but it is no more than this. St, 
Paul, when he was Saul of Tarsus, tells 
us that in all good conscience he perse- 



A CHRISTIAN CONSCIENCE. 23 

cuted the Church of Christ. It seems very 
strange to us that a man should put people 
to death with a conscience void of offense 
toward God and man, and yet we must re- 
member that he regarded himself at that 
time as doing God service by stopping 
the progress of pernicious heresy in the 
world. 

There is another thing about conscience 
that it is well for us to bear in mind: each 
man's conscience is a policeman for him, 
and not for the whole community. Have 
you not seen people who wanted to be con- 
science for everybody ? They were not sat- 
isfied to be guided themselves by the voice 
of their consciences, but they wanted every- 
body else to listen to what this policeman on 
their beat had to say. Now there must be a 
standard of piety in the world, but it is by 
no means safe to allow that standard to be 
any man's conscience. " One man esteemeth 
one day above another ; another esteemeth 
every day alike. Let each man be fully as- 
sured in his own mind. ... So then 
each one of us shall give account of himself 
to God. . . . Let us not therefore judge 



24 BEING A CHRISTIAN* 

one another any more ; but judge ye this 
rather, that no man put a stumbling-block in 
his brother's way, or an occasion of falling." 

Our consciences are not things apart from 
us, independent of us, and unaffected by our 
actions, but they are a part of us, and what- 
ever we do of right or of wrong has its effect 
upon the conscience as well as upon all that 
goes to make up these selves of ours. No 
single act of life but leaves the whole life 
different from what it was. This in no 
small measure accounts for the fact that 
conscience is by no means to be regarded as 
an infallible rule of right even for the indi- 
vidual, to say nothing of making our con- 
sciences the rule of right for the commu- 
nity. It not infrequently happens that two 
persons pursue diametrically different courses 
of conduct, each claiming for himself the 
approval of his conscience. 

Do not let us conclude because of these 
things that conscience is worthless. I only 
want you to see what it is worth, and to 
neither overestimate it nor underestimate 
it. We do not despise the judgment of 
men merely because we realize that no man 



A CHRISTIAN CONSCIENCE. 25 

is infallible in his opinions. We go to a 
friend and ask his advice about a business 
enterprise. He advises us to embark in it. 
We know him to be a successful business 
man, and take his advice. The enterprise 
proves a failure, and \\ e are ruined. Or we 
go to one and ask his advice, and we are 
advised not to have anything to do with it. 
We take the advice, but soon learn to our 
chagrin that had w^e put our money into it 
we would have made a fortune. Now be- 
cause of these mistakes we do not say that 
human judgment is a worthless thing ; we 
only say that men are liable to err in judg- 
ment. 

In matters of conscience there is this same 
fallibility, except that here we have an advan- 
tage not possessed in matters of judgment. 
We have a standard which is perfect and by 
which our consciences can be tried. It is 
because of this that a very high degree of 
perfection in character is attainable by any 
man, even though he may not be above the 
average in intellect. This standard is to 
be kept before the mind, and up to it the 
conscience is to be educated. 



26 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

The character of Jesus is the touchstone. 
In all matters of conscience, as well as in 
everything else pertaining to the Christian 
life, he is both the model after which all is 
to be fashioned and the ideal toward which 
we are incessantly to strive. The con- 
science of Jesus was keyed to the highest 
spiritual tone in the universe. Let us look 
at its workings as they are to be seen on 
two occasions in his life ; one in childhood, 
and the other near the close, that grand 
close which would never have been possible 
had there been a violation of conscience at 
any intermediate point. 

When the anxious mother questioned him 
in the temple, after she had searched in vain 
for him among the friends in the caravan 
and had returned to Jerusalem with a heavy 
heart wondering what could have become of 
him, his simple answer was that he must 
be about his Father's business. In this first 
glimpse we have of him after he reaches 
self-consciousness, we find him yielding im- 
plicit obedience to the highest call to which 
a soul can respond. Near the close of his 
earthly life, in this same city, Jerusalem, 



A CHRISTIAN CONSCIENCE. 2J 

some Greeks who have heard of him ask to 
see him. When they are brought into his 
presence he seems to be profoundly moved. 
The very presence of these Gentiles sug- 
gested, no doubt with great force, the su- 
preme agony he was to endure, through 
which they should be brought to a knowl- 
edge of the truth. After illustrating life 
through death with a grain of wheat, he 
speaks, it appears, rather to himself than to 
those about him. A conflict is going on 
within him, and we are permitted to listen 
at the very door of the heart of the Son of 
man, and hear what he says, and see him 
win the victory. The hour of great suffer- 
ing is at hand. The shadow of the cross, 
cold, fearful, is already upon him. The 
possibility of escape is presented to him. 
Now bow the head and listen. " What 
shall I say? Father, save me from this 
hour? But for this cause came I unto this 
hour. Father, glorify thy name." This is 
the note to which the conscience of Jesus 
was keyed : " Father, glorify thy name." 
Xot for a moment in all his life did he 
swerve from this. There were times of 



28 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

terrible temptation ; there was even a time 
when the range of divine possibility was 
challenged to see if there was any other 
way than that which was presented ; but 
when none was found, he was true to the 
convictions of his soul, the promptings of 
his conscience : " Thy will, not mine, be 
done." 

As the conscience of Jesus was keyed to 
this note, u Father, glorify thy name," ours 
must be satisfied with no lower tone. The 
value of conscience depends upon its educa- 
tion, and Jesus is the only one who is capa- 
ble of educating it properly. A Christian 
conscience is one which has Christ for its 
standard. If our consciences approve what 
we know from his character he would dis- 
approve, then the conscience is wrong. 

Conscience is thus not in itself, and apart 
from the Master, an absolute standard of 
right and wrong. Indeed, its voice is not 
even at times distinguishable from the voice 
of self-interest, and not infrequently the sat- 
isfaction arising from having carried out a 
cherished plan is mistaken for the approval 
of conscience. So we must ask whether 



A CHRISTIAN CONSCIENCE. 29 

the course of conduct proposed, or the act 
performed, is such that like the life of Jesus 
it glorifies the Father's name. It is when 
this course has been pursued that conscience 
becomes more and more nearly the voice of 
God in the soul. 

If this standard for conscience was al- 
ways regarded, many things which are now 
vexed questions would be solved. Take 
the question of amusements. Many en- 
gage in forms of amusement saying that 
their consciences do not condemn them in 
the least ; that they can see no harm in 
these things. I am speaking now" of good 
people, sincere people. The trouble with 
them is that they have made conscience, not 
Christ, the standard ; whereas Christ is to 
be the standard for conscience itself. So 
many treat their consciences as though they 
were incorruptible entities so far removed 
from themselves that no matter what they 
were, or what they did, the voice of con- 
science would still be an infallible rule of 
right. This is not only dangerous, but it is 
absolutely fatal to the development of the 
highest Christian character* 



30 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

The voice of conscience is always to be 
listened to. There is a worm, which does 
great damage to ships and to the timbers in 
bridges, known as the teredo or ship-worm. 
This worm bores into the wood, usually fol- 
lowing the direction of the grain, so that a 
piece of wood into which one of these 
worms has bored is rendered weak and 
worthless because the grain, the fiber, that 
which gives the wood its strength, has been 
cut away. Conscience is the very fiber of 
character. Every time it is trifled with 
some of the strength of character is lost. 
Failure to heed its warnings is the teredo 
worm that destroys its grain, leaving the in- 
dividual, inconsistent, vacillating, worse than 
worthless to the cause of Christ, and utter- 
ly miserable in himself. Heed conscience. 
Educate it by obeying its monitions, and by 
comparing what it approves and what it 
condemns with the character of Jesus, until 
the time comes when it, like the conscience 
of the Master, will be keyed to that most 
perfect of tones : " Father, glorify thy 






T 



CHAPTER III. 

Christian Nourishment. 

O be a Christian is to be natural. The 
only unnatural thing in this world is 
that which neither responds to God 
nor yields obedience to his laws. Sin is arti- 
ficial, unnatural, something introduced into 
the world, and to be expelled because God 
is not its author. Much harm has resulted 
from reversing these positions ; regarding 
sin as the natural state of man, and the re- 
ligion of the Lord Jesus Christ as some- 
thing which has come to us from another 
1 vorld ; new and strange, so very different 
from that which really belongs to man that 
we must become other-worldly in order to 
be Christians. 

I believe that this in no small measure ac- 
counts for the fact that to be a Christian has 
been often represented, and is usually per- 
haps considered, to be the most difficult thing 
that a human being can undertake ; and that 
inconsistency in the Christian life is not to 

(31) 



32 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

be considered a serious fault, because to be a 
Christian is after all not a natural thing. 
This is an entirely false view. It is con- 
trary to the teaching of the Scriptures. We 
are there taught that man is made in the 
image of God, and though he is a fallen 
man, yet we are also taught that he is God's 
child, and that when he comes to himself 
he sets his face toward his Father's house. 
The way of the transgressor is the one de- 
scribed as a rugged way, while the way of 
the wise one, the servant of God, is a way 
of pleasantness, the way of paths of peace. 

I have no doubt that many things we 
permit ourselves to think and to do result 
from false ideas of what it means to be a 
Christian, and from a failure to recognize 
the truth that the most natural being in this 
world is not the unchristian, but the Chris- 
tian man. Jesus is sometimes spoken of as 
the perfect flower of humanity. What do 
we mean by such language if we do not 
mean that man unfolding without sin, under 
the immediate influence of the Spirit of God, 
is after all the right way, the natural way 
for him to live, and that only can he become 



CHRISTIAN NOURISHMENT. 33 

what even the weakest of us feels he ought 
to become when this is done? Jesus seems 
to me a much more natural man than Nero. 
We speak of Nero as a monster, we speak 
of Jesus as the Son of man. 

To be a Christian is then to be natu- 
ral, for all nature, you know, is obedient to 
God, doing ceaselessly his holy will. Every 
living thing in nature must be nourished 
in order to be sustained. There are three 
dangers to be guarded against at this point 
— overfeeding, underfeeding, and poison. 
The digestive organs have no discrimina- 
tion ; they take wdiatever is given them, 
and work it up. If too much is given, indi- 
gestion, resulting ultimately in chronic dys- 
pepsia, is the penalty ; if too little is given, 
weakness, nervous prostration, complete de- 
bilitv, result; if poison is given, the very 
strength of the digestive organs is used to 
hasten death. These processes have their 
counterpart in the Christian life. 

One of the dangers the young Christian 
is to guard against at the outset is overfeed- 
ing. I am now speaking of the average 
young person who has been converted in a 



34 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

revival season and is full of a genuine desire 
to be of service to the Master. The Phari- 
sees well illustrate what I mean. They 
were religious dyspeptics, people without 
any real spiritual health, though there was 
unceasing activity about things connected 
with true religion. With all the conven- 
tions, societies, meetings of all sorts one is 
called upon to attend, there is great dan- 
ger of suffering from being overfed. The 
enthusiastic young Christian, feeling the 
strength of a new life, and anxious to do 
valiantly in the ranks he has now joined, is 
in peculiar danger here. The trouble is not 
that he will do these things, but that he will 
be apt to feed on these alone. The Phari- 
sees were not condemned that they tithed 
mint, anise, and cummin, but they became 
so absorbed in these processes that they 
neglected judgment, mercy, and truth. 

Another danger to be guarded against in 
Christian nourishment is feeding on one 
thing all the time. The strongest man if 
given only one thing to eat at each meal, 
three times a day, every day in the year, 
would soon lose his strength. There are 



CHRISTIAN NOURISHMENT. 35 

well-meaning" persons who endeavor to feed 
Christians on a single doctrine. They in- 
sist that this is the whole truth of the Chris- 
tian religion, and that if this is possessed 
and professed the end of a Christian life has 
been attained. No Christian can feed his 
soul on any single doctrine of the Christian 
religion alone without becoming a religious 
dyspeptic. People say often of a man who 
seems to be pious : " How unhappy that man 
appears to be, and how entirely without 
charity he is to those who differ from him in 
regard to some of his views." Even Martin 
Luther became so absorbed in contempla- 
tion of the great doctrine of justification by 
faith that the Epistle of St. James was 
looked upon by him as without any real 
value. However important any single doc- 
trine may be, beware of feeding upon it 
alone. 

Another, and perhaps a danger to which 
a still greater number are exposed, is that 
of underfeeding. There are those who 
have undertaken the impossible task of be- 
ing Christians without belonging to any of 
the societies, attending any of the conven- 



36 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

tions ; absenting themselves with great con- 
sistency from the prayer meetings, attend- 
ing church only once on Sunday, seldom 
reading the Bible, and only saying their 
prayers in a formal way. This is a 
sure road to spiritual starvation. Can a 
human being live on a single meal a week, 
even though it may be a sumptuous meal, 
served in the best manner, with the fin- 
est music playing all the time one is at 
the table? Suppose, however, the food 
though palatable is not really nutritious ; 
can one live on good music and starch? 
Who would undertake to do any real work 
in the world on such fare ? and can he do 
the Master 5 s work who is spiritually fed 
after the same fashion? Remember, being 
a Christian is being natural ; and it is not 
natural to try to live and grow strong with- 
out food. 

Then there is danger of being poisoned. 
Many things are presented, especially to the 
young, which are recommended only in a 
negative way. They are not told that these 
things are good, but that they are not bad. 
" This will not hurt you " is a very poor 



CHRISTIAN NOURISHMENT. 37 

recommendation for anything. What I 

want to know is, will it do me good? The 
young life is so strong that it craves a great 
deal of food, and there is danger of its tak- 
ing hold of these things thus negatively 
recommended and finding when it is too 
late that even from this point of view they 
have been deceived. That must not be fed 
upon which will not make us grow into the 
likeness of Jesus. The stronger a person 
is, the more intense he is, the more careful 
he should be of his spiritual food. He will, 
unless great care is exercised, find his soul 
fastening upon things that are destroying 
him, and even if he breaks away he w r ill 
learn to his sorrow that he has lost not a 
little of his strength. One whom poison 
has come near putting an end to has never 
the same strength he had before. Ask of 
the food proposed for you : " Is it good ? Is 
it nourishing ? Will it enable me to grow in 
Christlikeness ? " And when you are per- 
suaded that each of these questions can be 
truthfully answered affirmatively, then eat. 

I have called your attention to some of 
the dangers to which we are all exposed to a 



38 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

greater or less degree ; now let me call your 
attention to the food which will nourish the 
soul. The first thing is prayer. By prayer 
I do not mean merely petition. There is a 
great deal in the Lord's prayer before we 
come to the petition, " Give us this day our 
daily bread." Petition is a part of prayer, 
but by no means all. The nourishment to 
be obtained by the Christian through prayer 
is that which is derived by the consciousness 
that he is then in communion with God in 
an especial sense, and that there the di- 
vine life comes consciously close to his life. 
When one talks with God, then the reality 
of God is keenly felt, and the strength which 
that feeling engenders enables the child of 
God to go forth strong to do the Father's 
work. The great endurance of Moses was 
due to the fact that he saw the invisible. 
Elijah's courage can never be understood 
without pondering deeply the preface to his 
declaration as he stood before the sinning 
monarch and told him of the great drouth 
which was to come : "As the Lord God liv- 
eth, before whom I stand" said he. Now real 
prayer aids this consciousness of standing be- 



CHRISTIAN NOURISHMENT. 39 

fore God. Prayer is indeed feeding in the 
very palace of the King, on food such that he 
who feeds freely will hecome himself kingly. 
The great Christians of the world have all 
been men of prayer. St. Paul exhorted those 
to whom he wrote to surround themselves 
with, and live in, an atmosphere of prayer ; 
and Jesus told his disciples to pray unwea- 
ryingly. Prayer keeps the windows of the 
soul open on the God side. It is really the 
only means of retaining that perfect sym- 
pathy with divine purposes which is indis- 
pensable to a healthy Christian life. How 
much time Jesus spent in prayer ! Do you 
not remember how it is said of him that he 
would rise before the dawn and go out on 
the mountain to pray? If this communion 
with the Father in prayer was a necessity 
of his life, how much more necessary it is 
for us, for we have not the inherent strength 
of righteousness he had. He never for a 
moment failed in his allegiance to God, and 
yet he felt the need of constant prayer. 

To be a Christian is to be like Christ, and 
to be like him is to feed on the same food, 
be nourished by the same life-giving stream 



40 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

which flowed from the fountain of life 
ceaselessly into his soul. We must by 
prayer go often to this fountain and drink 
deep of its blessed waters. We are weak, 
not only by nature, but because we have 
weakened ourselves by sin ; and we need 
therefore to be fed constantly on that food 
which is health-giving. We need, in a 
word, to live with God, to walk with the 
Master ; but this is not possible without 
much deep, earnest prayer. What a privi- 
lege it is to have access to God always, to 
be the sons of a King who is never too 
busy to listen to and interest himself in all 
that concerns his youngest, weakest child ! 

Another means of Christian nourishment 
is meditation upon the word of God. The 
psalmist tells us again and again how the 
word of God is the food most delicious to 
him : it is sweeter than honey and the drop- 
pings of the honeycomb ; it is more to be de- 
sired than all the things men usually strive 
for hardest. He tells us that in the night 
watches it forms food for reflection, and 
that at all times meditating upon it is his 
greatest delight. He tells us that the result 



CHRISTIAN NOURISHMENT. 41 

of such meditation is to give strength so 
that like the trees by the river he who med- 
itates on the word will nourish. St. Paul, 
exhorts those to whom he writes to think 
on divine things. 

One of the things we have to guard 
against especially, in our efforts at being 
Christians, is inconsistency. That which 
often astonishes us most is to see one in 
whom we had the utmost confidence, and 
whom despite some single evil action we 
believe to be a good man, do a thing which 
we knew he condemned. I believe that no 
little of the inconsistency in the lives of pro- 
fessing Christians is due to a lack of medi- 
tation on the word of God. a As a man 
thinketh in his heart, so is he," does not 
merely mean that if a man thinks bad 
thoughts he is a bad man, and if he thinks 
good thoughts he is a good man. It means 
far more than this. I take it that the real 
meaning of it is that if a man accustoms 
himself to dwelling on the truth as it is 
in Jesus in his thoughts, meditating on the 
teachings of the Scriptures, especially on 
the life of Jesus, he will become Christlike. 



\2 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

This is the food that is to save us from 
vacillation. It is when we allow the things 
of time and sense to crowd out thoughts of 
the invisible, when we allow self to dis- 
place Christ in our thought, that we are 
guilty of those things which we despise, 
and which so affect us sometimes as to 
make us almost despair of ever being what 
we really desire to be. To bring every 
thought into captivity to the obedience of 
Christ is the way to be strong, and the 
way to take captive these thoughts is by ac 
customing ourselves to meditate on GodV> 
word. 

There is other food by which the soul is 
nourished, such as worship and Christian 
conversation. Let each have its place. 
Feed the soul on the food it needs, remem- 
bering that as the body is to be fed in order 
that it may enable you to do your work in 
the world most successfully, so the soul is to 
be fed on that which will make you strong 
for righteousness. Above all, feed most on 
the life of Jesus. " My body is meat in- 
deed." 



CHAPTER IV. 
Christian Growth. 

BEING a Christian is living a life, and 
not merely making a j^rofession. When 
one is initiated into a secret society he 
is just as much a member as anyone else, 
and soon learns all that is to be known ; but 
joining the Church is by no means the end 
of Christian life. We are to grow in grace 
and in the knowledge of our Lord and Sav- 
iour Jesus Christ. When one starts to be 
a Christian he enters upon a life which is 
day by day to grow fuller and richer, and 
which eternity itself will only suffice to com- 
plete. One can go to a university and there 
pursue some branch until he can claim that 
he has mastered it. He may learn more 
than anyone else has ever learned of that 
subject, and may justly claim to be a master. 
There is, however, but one master Christian, 
and that is Jesus ; all others are, and will 
ever be, his disciples. We are to grow more 
and more into his likeness. 

(43) 



44 



BEING A CHRISTIAN 



In the last chapter I talked to you about 
food being essential for nourishment ; now I 
want to talk to you about the reason we are 
to desire to be nourished. It is not merely 
that we may live, but that we may grow. 
No Christian is ever to be satisfied with 
past attainments, The language of his soul 
should be : u I count not myself to have ap- 
prehended ; but one thing I do, forgetting 
the things that are behind and stretching 
forth after the things that are before, I press 
toward the mark for the prize of the high 
calling of God in Christ Jesus." The su- 
preme desire should be to grow up into Je- 
sus, the living Head. 

In order to do this, there must be exercise 
as well as food. Not a little is said about 
self-denial and cross-bearing in the Christian 
life. The object of this is that we may be 
strong, vigorous Christians, trained for the 
Master's service. A very essential part of 
this training is exercising ourselves in good 
works. While we are feeding we are ob- 
taining fuel without which the engine could 
not be run ; but that is a poor engine which 
simply consumes the fuel, sending a very at- 



CHRISTIAN GROWTH. 45 

tractive column of blue smoke up into the 
air, and throwing off steam in a way that 
says, * ; See how I might run," and yet 
which docs not move either itself or any- 
thing else. There are people who quote a 
great deal of Scripture, and tell vou that 
they have studied the Bible, who have, as 
they will tell you, " an experience," by which 
they mean they have received something, 
and yet who do almost nothing for the cause 
of Christ. Go back to these people after an 
absence of twenty years, and you will hear 
the same texts quoted and the same expe- 
rience given. They are not growing. Thev 
are as were some to whom the great apostle 
to the Gentiles wrote, babes in Christ when 
thev should be men. 

Xo real spiritual development is to be ex- 
pected without exercise. The Christian re- 
ligion is sometimes treated as though being 
a Christian was like joining the Masons. In 
masonry you take certain degrees until at 
length you arrive at the point beyond which 
no Mason goes. Vou have gotten all that 
masonry has to offer. So there have been 
those, and unfortunately there are those still, 



46 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

who speak of being a Christian as though 
it was a definite series of steps. They tell 
you that you must " get religion," and if 
certain things in your life do not square 
with their notions, then you must get more 
religion ; just as though the path from earth 
to heaven was a series of platforms just so 
far apart, and being a Christian consisted in 
jumping from one of these to the other. 
They ask you, "Have you got religion? 
When did you get religion? Did you get 
it all, or did you stop before you got it all? " 
as if they had asked you, " Did you ever 
catch the measles? Did you have it mild- 
ly or severely ? ' r 

A man's Christian life is begun when he 
is born of the Spirit of God, and his real de- 
velopment begins when he realizes that he is 
God's child. When he reaches this point he 
is to begin to unfold, to develop in the Chris- 
tian life just as he would, and does, in his life 
as related to this world merely. He takes 
naturally the food adapted to his nourish- 
ment, and the exercise necessary for strength 
and development. At first the babe is given 
his food. He does not know what is best 



rr 

■ 



CHRISTIAN GROWTH. 47 

for him. Left to himself, the infant would 
put into his mouth as readily that which is 
destructive of life as that which is necessary 
to sustain life. So when one begins the 
Christian life it is necessary for him to put 
himself in the hands of, and under the di- 
rection of, those who have advanced to some 
extent in that life, and take the food and 
perform the duties that are pointed out to 
him. The exercise may at first be weari- 
some, and this is natural. Remember that 
you are really bringing into play a set of 
muscles hitherto almost entirely unused, or 
perhaps even used in the very opposite di- 
rection, so th?t they are not merely weak, 
ut they are warped, even strong in a direc- 
tion opposite to that to which they must now 
be turned. 

Here is a man who all his life has walked 
with a bent back and a contracted chest. 
His muscles have hardened in that direction. 
He begins to have a cough, and the physi- 
cian tells him that he must walk erect, that 
his lungs must have room. He makes the 
effort, aided by strong shoulder-braces ; but 
even then he walks erect with the greatest, 



48 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

difficulty, and feels a fatigue greater than he 
ever felt. Let him persevere. After awhile 
he will find his strength sufficient to enable 
him to walk without the fatigue, and event- 
ually he will be able to dispense with the 
braces, his muscles having become braces 
themselves, such that he walks erect with- 
out being conscious of it, or needing such 
restraints. This is the way it is with those 
who enter the Christian life. They have 
been living a selfish, contracted life. Being 
a Christian requires enlargement, expansion. 
They are given things to do which to them 
are difficult tasks. They shrink from these 
things. " Why should I deny myself? Why 
should I take up my cross?" The reason, 
my dear friend, is that you have grown in 
the wrong direction, and now you have to 
have these things as aids. After awhile, if 
you follow Jesus, that which is now a diffi- 
cult thing will be an easy thing. You will 
possess so much strength, so much vigor, so 
much vitality, that things which to you at 
the beginning of your Christian life are 
simply impossible will be done by you not 
only with ease, but with delight. This re- 



CHRISTIAN GROWTH. 49 

suit is only to be obtained by feeding upon 
the nourishing food I have spoken of, and 
taking proper spiritual exercise ; exercising 
yourself in those works in which Jesus spent 
his glorious life, and which the Church 
of Christ is in the world to carry on — the 
great work of showing men the Father. 
The monkish system of rigorous discipline 
is simply this idea carried to an extreme. 

The first condition of growth in the right 
direction is health. Being a Christian is be- 
ing sane, using the word both in the ordi- 
nary sense of mental soundness and in the 
original sense of general soundness. The 
morbid, diseased Christian is as unfit for the 
work of the Master as the diseased body is 
unfit for much of the work of the world. 
That man who expects to grow must seek 
spiritual health. He has at hand the means 
for obtaining this : it is to walk with Him 
who gives abundant life to all who follow 
him. Seek the companionship of the best hu- 
man beings you can associate with. What 
one needs for health is to be in a health- 
ful atmosphere. Somewhere in Germany, I 
have heard, there is a village, or more prop- 
4 



50 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

erly a farming community, of exceptionally 
sound people. To this place many who are 
insane are sent. Only one insane person is 
sent to a house. There he becomes an in- 
mate of the home. He is surrounded by 
cheerfulness, by vigor, by health, by kind- 
ness, until in many cases he is completely 
cured. This is a thoroughly rational process : 
make people well by surrounding them with 
health. This is the process for the Chris- 
tian ; in order to be a healthy Christian, you 
must live in an atmosphere of health. For- 
tunately, you can have this atmosphere any- 
where, for God is everywhere. There is no 
place on earth where one may not have ac- 
cess to him, where one may not be over- 
shadowed by his presence and filled with 
his Spirit. Then there is the Bible with its 
wealth of truth, a fountain of health for all. 

A danger to be guarded against at this 
point is that of seeking health in the wrong 
place. When one has a cold, everybody he 
meets is ready with a remedy. If a child is 
sick, all the neighbors want to prescribe. 
This is very kind in the neighbors ; but if all 
the prescriptions are given, it is likely to re- 



CHRISTIAN GROWTH. 51 

suit in the death of the child. When men are 
feeling their way in the Christian life, not 
quite certain about their ground, there are 
well- meaning people who are ready to tell 
you at once what you need. Listen to them 
respectfully, but only as you would listen to 
a friend who told you how to cure your cold. 
If the one who talks to you is himself so 
near your ideal of what a Christian ought 
to be that you feel him to be one who has 
sufficient understanding of your needs to be 
able to prescribe for you, then take his ad- 
vice, but be careful. There are a great many 
quacks in religion as in other things, and 
they are as ready with their " isms " as oth- 
ers are with their nostrums to dose every- 
one who comes near. Your spiritual life is 
too valuable a thing to be put in peril after 
this fashion. In your difficulties, in your 
conscious weakness, go to the one person 
you know who seems to you to be the most 
Christlike, tell him your symptoms, and ask 
advice. Go as you would go to a wise phy- 
sician, and talk as you would talk to such 
a physician. Go especially to your Bible, 
and there study Jesus as he dealt with those 



52 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

who came to him diseased. Go to him, the 
Great Physician, and ask him to give you 
what you need, and to show you the path to 
spiritual health. Do these things, and verily 
you shall live ; and because you have health, 
your Christian life will be a delight. 

A healthful Christian is necessarily a 
growing Christian. Growth is one of the 
things that cannot be hid. The man who 
grows knows that he is growing, and oth- 
ers know it also. The consciousness that we 
are growing is one of the delightful things 
in the Christian life. An artist has been 
studying nature diligently for years. He 
has watched the effect of changing seasons 
on the woods and fields ; he has watched 
the clouds in the storm, and the sky when 
flooded with sunlight. One evening he looks 
at the sunset and sees something he never 
saw before. There is a new beauty in it all, 
grander, more elevating, more wonderful 
than anything he has ever before seen ; and 
with the glow of this revelation of loveliness 
in his soul, he takes his brush and paints the 
picture of his life. What does it all mean? 
Is it that there has never been such a sunset 



CHRISTIAN GROWTH. 53 

before ? Ah ! no ; it is that the soul of the 
artist has grown, and he sees to-day what 
he had hitherto been incapable of seeing. 
The musician has been working for years. 
One day he begins for the five-hundredth 
time to go over one of the great creations of 
Beethoven. Suddenly it seems to him as if 
the very voice of the Master spoke to him 
and told him the meaning of the music. A 
friend standing near says : " Is that some- 
thing new you have there ? It is very beauti- 
ful ; I never heard it before." He smiles, 
and says : " Yes, it is new to me to-day, 
though the music was written before either 
of us was born." The simple truth is that 
the man has been growing. You take up a 
book you have not looked at for ten years. 
You do not expect it to interest you, because 
you remember that ten years ago a friend 
told you to get it and read it, and it was well 
worth careful reading, and trusting the judg- 
ment of your friend you got it, but had to 
confess that it failed to interest you. To- 
day you are surprised to find yourself so 
fascinated that you are unable to put the 
book away from you. You wonder that 



54 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

you did not see its beauties before. The 
reason is simply that you have now grown 
up to the book. These same delights, only 
in far greater measure, come to the Chris- 
tian. One day, after having served God 
earnestly and to the best of his ability for 
years, he is on his knees in prayer, or walk- 
ing in the field, or comforting a sorrowing 
one, or leading a soul to the Master, or quiet- 
ly reading and meditating upon God's holy 
word, when there comes to him a vision of 
God like a revelation. He has never seen 
God after this fashion before. Does it mean 
that now he is a Christian for the first time ? 
Does it mean that he is now converted ? 
Does it mean that he is now sanctified? I 
am sure that the real meaning of this expe- 
rience is that he is growing. He has reached 
that point in his spiritual development in 
which it is possible for him to have a vision 
of God which he could not have earlier. 
Not that God does not always stand revealed 
to him who can see, but because he was here- 
tofore incapable of seeing so much of God. 
Did not Jesus see the Father as no other 
eye saw him? And to-day, are there not 



CHRISTIAN GROWTH. 55 

visions of God granted to him who is most 
like the Master which are utterly impossible 
to others? The sunset is no respecter of 
persons, and yet the artist sees what the in- 
artistic eye is utterly incapable of seeing. 
The music of the great musician, the poetry 
of the great poet, can only speak to kindred 
souls. The pure in heart see God. The 
man who is growing in grace and in the 
knowledge of God is the one to whom comes 
ever new visions of the Father, ever new 
revelations of the loveliness, of the attract- 
iveness of Jesus, and of the consequent de- 
lights of the Christian life. 

It is a great pity and a great mistake to 
point to these times of open vision as to 
definite experiences which are to be obtained 
by some clearly defined process. If they are 
to be genuine and profitable ; if each one is 
to be not only a vision, but a promise and a 
prophecy of what is still to come, they must 
be the result not of abnormal conditions, but 
of healthy, natural growth. The Christian 
life is natural. I do not think this can be 
too much insisted upon. Its processes are 
not unlike those with which we are familiar 



$6 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

in every department of life. The poet who 
for the first time saw the beauties of Shakes- 
peare's "As You Like It " would say to the 
child who came to him saying that he saw 
no beauty in it : " Wait, study, learn ; and 
when your mind grows under wise training, 
you will see all that I now see, and perhaps 
even more than anyone has seen." So I 
am sure the way to treat one who has be- 
gun the Christian life, but who knows noth- 
ing scarcely of the experience which he 
hears related by others, is to say : " Wait ; 
study Jesus, follow him very closely ; in time 
there will be given to you a revelation of the 
truth such as perhaps no other has yet seen." 
These things cannot be forced. Do not try 
to make yourself see what you have heard 
others say they see, or to make yourself feel 
what they claim to feel. Compare your con- 
dition with others, if you desire, but espe- 
cially ask yourself whether Jesus is more to 
you to-day than ever ; and if you are sure 
that he is, that each day he is more precious, 
and the desire to be like him is more and 
more ardent, do not become discouraged ; for 
this is an evidence of growth, and the time 



CHRISTIAN GROWTH. 57 

will conic when von will see far more clear- 
ly than yon now do. It may be a revelation 
that shall overwhelm ; it is more likely to be 
a quiet opening to yon of a new view of the 
truth which shall enrich you and strengthen 
you so as to lit you better for the Master's 
work. The w T ay to grow is not by any ar- 
tificial process, but by the simple, faithful 
following of Jesus. 

In his chamber all alone, 
Kneeling on the floor of stone, 
Prayed the monk in deep contrition 
For his sins of indecision, 
Prayed for greater self-denial 
In temptation and in trial; 
It was noonday by the dial, 
And the monk was all alone. 

Suddenly, as if it lightened, 
An unwonted splendor brightened 
All within him and without him 
In that narrow cell of stone; 
And he saw the Blessed Vision 
Of our Lord, with light Elysian 
Like a vesture wrapped about him, 
Like a garment round him thrown. 

It was now the appointed hour 
When alike in shine or shower, 
Winter's cold or summer's heat, 



58 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

To the convent portals came 
All the blind and halt and lame, 
All the beggars of the street, 
For their daily dole of food 
Dealt them by the brotherhood; 
And their almoner was he 
Who upon his bended knee, 
Wrapt in silent ecstasy 
Of divinest self-surrender, 
Saw the Vision and the splendor. 
Deep distress and hesitation 
Mingled with his adoration; 
Should he go, or should he stay? 

Straightway to his feet he started, 
And with longing look intent 
On the Blessed Vision bent, 
Slowly from his cell departed, 
Slowly on his errand went. 



Through the long hour intervening 
It had waited his return, 
And he felt his bosom burn, 
Comprehending all the meaning, 
When the Blessed Vision said, 
1 Hadst thou stayed, I must have fled." 



CHAPTER V. 

Christian Culture. 

IT is not infrequently thought that to be a 
Christian is to lead a very narrow, con- 
tracted life Such a conception of Chris- 
tianity is erroneous. The largest life that a 
human being can live is the Christian life. 
It is true that there have been very nar- 
row individuals who have called themselves 
Christians, and who were Christians ; yet 
they were no more true types of what the 
Christian religion is intended to make of 
one than a man with withered legs and 
arms is what bodily life is intended to be. 
. V man with one idea, bigoted, narrow, and 
fanatical, has at times appeared to be neces- 
sary in the development of the Christian re- 
ligion. It has been necessary to call espe- 
cial attention to particular forms of evil, and 
men who have not realized that anything else 
was evil have gone naming through the land 
enlightening the people and arousing them 
at this point. The narrow-gauge railroad 

(59) 



60 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

that runs through some of the defiles of the 
mountains carries the traveler to places no 
broad-gauge road reaches, but for all that it 
is not the ideal railroad. That narrow men 
are both needed at times and can be used to 
great advantage to advance the cause of 
Christ, does not show that the cause is nar- 
row, but on the contrary that it is very 
large to be able to use those who possess 
one talent as well as those who have five. 
But we are to remember that we are not 
expected in his service to bury the one be- 
cause we have no more. What we have 
was given to trade with, to improve, to cul- 
tivate The ideal Christian man is the man 
of widest, best culture. Whether general 
culture is possible to him or not, in order 
to be a Christian in the best sense of the 
word he must be a man who cultivates as- 
siduously all the Christian graces, and whose 
life shows harmonious development of the 
fruits of the Spirit. 

" Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
thou shalt be saved," is not to be con- 
strued as teaching that faith is only an ap- 
propriating grace. The initial act of faith 



CHRISTIAN CULTURE. 6l 

in the beginning of the Christian life is that 
by which the grace of God extended to us 
in Jesus Christ is appropriated, and we then 
become the sons of God ; but this is only the 
beginning, by no means to be looked upon 
as the end of Christian life. Faith is to be 
regarded henceforward as the regulative 
principle of the life. We walk by faith : 
not a blind, unreasoning reliance on an un- 
known power, but a reasonable faith in a 
present, living Christ— a faith which not 
only receives his blessings, but which by 
obedience honors his laws. 

Having taken Jesus Christ by faith to be 
our personal Saviour, then comes the work 
of development. Says St. Peter : " In your 
faith supply virtue ; and in your virtue, 
knowledge ; and in your knowledge, tem- 
perance ; and in your temperance, patience ; 
and in your patience, godliness ; and in your 
godliness, love of the brethren ; and in your 
love of the brethren, love." 

Faith in Jesus is never to exclude self- 
reliance and energy on the part of his fol- 
lowers. The man of faith is by no means 
the one who sits idly about, waiting for 



62 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

some especial message from the Master to 
tell him what to do. On the contrary he 
sets about doing at once the duty which lies 
next to him, believing that his Master wants 
him to be actively engaged in that work 
which, because of its very nature, must be 
his. So in the words quoted above we are 
told, " In your faith supply virtue," active 
excellence, energy. Beginning with an ap- 
propriating faith, the Christian is to go on 
growing until he develops an energetic 
faith. He is never to cease appropriating, 
but his very power to appropriate is really 
conditioned by the use to which he puts that 
which he already has. It is the planted 
grain of mustard seed that grows, the grain 
which is not only in a position to do so, but 
which actually does take hold of all those 
things in soil and atmosphere which are nec- 
essary to change the tiny seed into the vigo- 
rous plant. 

It may not be amiss to pause a little while 
here, and say some things about this word 
faith. It has a great many meanings both 
in the Bible and in religious writings. 
When we are told, "Believe on the Lord 



CHRISTIAN CULTURE. 63 

Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved," it is 
as I have pointed out above, appropriating 
faith. It is that reaching out of the soul 
which says, " I will take Jesus at his word, 
accept him as my Saviour." Faith then 
becomes that by which we recognize our- 
selves as the children of God. In the words 
"holding the mystery of the faith in a pure 
conscience," the word faith is used to in- 
clude the whole scheme of Christianity ; it 
stands for the religion of Jesus Christ, and 
it is as if the writer had spoken of holding 
the truth as taught by Jesus in a pure con- 
science. When the Master says to his dis- 
ciples, " Have faith in God," he means to 
teach them that God is to be trusted im- 
plicitly in all things. The eleventh chapter 
of the Epistle to the Hebrews gives us an 
account of the works wrought, the sufferings 
endured, the dangers dared by those who 
had faith in God and in Jesus Christ our 
Lord. 

No Christian culture contemplates a de- 
velopment of faith so that the Christian 
man's faith shall include all these different 
phases. It is no narrow, supine, supersti- 



6\ BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

tious belief, but an active, earnest, reason- 
able, energetic faith in him who is over all, 
God blessed forever. It is a faith which is 
strong enough to enable one to abandon the 
old life of sin for the new life of righteous- 
ness. It is a faith which docs not ask for 
freedom from hardship, and does not shrink 
at self-denial. It merely asks, " Lord, what 
wilt thou have me to do? " and then when 
the word comes, whether it be to preach 
the gospel in Judea or to go among the 
Gentiles ; whether it be to stay at home 
and pursue the business which until the 
present has claimed the attention, or to 
abandon it for something else ; whether it 
be to surrender things which were very 
precious and were deemed essential to hap- 
piness, possibly essential even to content, 
and to embrace those things and perform 
those duties which hitherto were accounted 
unlovely or distasteful, still so to trust him 
as without question to obey his commands. 
Faith is thus to be developed until it ex- 
cludes doubt. This was the kind of faith 
manifested in the life 01 St. Paul ; this was 
the faith of Luther ; this was the faith that 



CHRISTIAN CULTURE. 65 

characterized John Wesley. This large, ac- 
tive faith has been the foundation of every 
great Christian character. It was, as was 
every other grace, more perfectlv developed 
in the Master than in any other. There is 
a calm confidence in his tone when he savs, 
"My Father," which points him out not 
onlv as the Son of God, but as one who was 
alwavs conscious of the relationship. His 
faith in God was so great that even in that 
dread hour when the very light of heaven 
itself seemed to grow dim, and the blessed 
presence which had ever seemed so near ap- 
peared to be withdrawing into the darkness, 
he could still say in the fullness of a faith 
which did not have then the clearest open 
vision, which triumphed over suffering of 
the flesh and the worse suffering of the 
presence and the power of human ingrati- 
tude, " Father, forgive them." Jesus is 
the Master of the faith, and Christian cul- 
ture contemplates a development of faith 
which shall be satisfied with no lower ideal. 
"In your faith supply energy." Faith is 
not merclv that power which enables us to 
suffer in God's cause, and for the Master's 
5 



66 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

sake, but which enables us to work for him. 
By faith men wrought righteousness and 
stopped the mouths of lions as well as en- 
dured all manner of hardship. The faith 
the Christian is to have is that which can be 
still when one is required to wait, and can 
move with energy and dispatch when that 
is demanded. It is a faith so developed that 
it can cross seas and traverse deserts, or bow 
in Gethsemane in submission to the Father's 
will. Faith is not merely a passive virtue, 
it has a very important active side. " In 
your faith supply energy." 

St. Paul said on one occasion of certain 
people : " I bear them record that they have 
a zeal for God, but not according to knowl- 
edge." It seems, from this, possible that 
there may be an energetic faith which is not 
a wise faith ; hence we are told not merely 
to supply energy, but in that energy knowl- 
edge. The zeal manifested by the cultured 
Christian is to be both earnest and wise. 
Not a little harm has been done to the cause 
of Christ by men who were very earnest, 
very energetic, but exceedingly unwise. 
Christianity demands wisdom. " In your 



CHRISTIAN CULTURE. 67 

virtue supply knowledge." Christian ac- 
tivity is not to be governed by mere feeling 
or impulse, but is to be a wisely directed 
energy. No man has a whit more spiritual 
muscle than is needed, and if he wastes his 
strength in unwise effort he will have noth- 
ing left when demand is made for legitimate 
work. 

It is far easier to be carried away with 
enthusiasm for some cause and plunge head- 
long into it, and even sacrifice oneself for 
it, than it is to be calmly courageous at all 
times, having convictions of duty based 
upon faith and knowledge. Such a position 
often causes one to be misunderstood. He 
is at times, because he does both know and 
believe, forced to take the most unpopular 
of all grounds, the middle ground. He is 
too conservative for the radicals, and too 
radical for the conservatives. Such a man, 
however, during important crises, is the 
safety of the Church. He acts as a break- 
water for both parties. 

We are to guard here against two dan- 
gers. One is a knowledge which seeks 
ever to know, but never arrives at any de- 



68 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

cision. There are a great many Christians 
who say, u I would do certain things, if I 
only knew." How then can we know so 
as to have a zeal according to knowledge? 
The only volume, aside from the common 
sense with which we are endowed, is the 
life of Jesus. We are to study it constantly 
until we are so well acquainted with him 
that we will have little if any doubt as to 
the course to be pursued There is at this 
point in the Christian life not a little Chris- 
tian agnosticism. " I would be zealous," 
some say, " if I only could be certain that 
this was the thing I ought to do." Our an- 
swer to all such is this : Study Jesus — what 
it seems most reasonable that such a char- 
acter as he would do under the circumstan- 
ces ; and then, with a prayer to God for his 
blessing on the effort, do that thing. 

There is another danger, and that is, there 
are those who say there is nothing to be 
learned. They claim immediate inspiration 
of the Holy Spirit for their actions. It is a 
very serious thing for any human being" to 



*-> 



claim to be immediately and infallibly in- 
spired by the Holy Ghost. When one dis- 



CHRISTIAN CULTURE. 69 

believes, he makes God a liar ; and it is 
equally true that he makes God a liar when 
he represents him as saying, or as com- 
manding, that which he has neither said nor 
commanded. 

Have faith, but do not despise knowledge. 
Because certain things are said to have been 
hidden from the wise and prudent, do not at 
once leap to the conclusion that wisdom and 
prudence are to be despised. " With all 
thy getting, get understanding." " In your 
faith supply knowledge." 

Xor are we to stop here. An energetic 
faith, a wise faith, these will accomplish 
wonders, but more is needed for the Chris- 
tian. Remember, the Christian man is real- 
ly the largest man , and hence the widest, 
the most complete culture is demanded. 
u In your knowledge supply self-control." 
No life can be its best without self-control. 

In thinking of self-control we are not to 
limit the idea to the control of our tempers. 
We are not to think that because under 
strong provocation we restrain ourselves, 
uttering no hasty word, doing no ill-advised 
thing, that therefore we know what self-con- 



70 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

trol means and have acquired it. This is a 
great deal, but the self-control the Christian 
must learn means far more than this. It 
means power rightly to direct every faculty 
of the nature. It means having the whole 
self under the dominion of a will which is it- 
self in harmony with the will of God. Let 
us study Jesus here, and see what self-con- 
trol meant in his life. 

We are given a picture of him before the 
incarnation in which he is represented as 
one having the form of God, and yet think- 
ing it not a thing to be grasped at to be 
even on an equality with God. We are 
told that he relinquishes this high position 
and takes upon himself the form of a serv- 
ant and is made in the likeness of man, and 
becomes obedient unto death, even the death 
of the cross. Think for a moment what 
self-control is here exhibited : occupying 
the highest conceivable position, yet having 
enough control over himself to lay aside all 
the splendors of that position that he might 
manifest that love of God which the world 
needed to know in order to be saved. It is the 
king having such perfect control over him- 



CHRISTIAN CULTURE. 7 I 

self that he can lay aside all the insignia of 
royalty in order to save his subjects. 

Do you see what I mean? We are held 
by circumstances, by position, by associa- 
tion. We are largely under the dominion 
of our surroundings. One object of Chris- 
tian culture is to enable us to acquire such 
control over ourselves that we shall be able 
to carry ourselves anywhere, and to do with 
ourselves anything that is for the glory of 
the God we serve. It means that we are to 
learn that the highest dignity is to be work- 
ers together with God, that the greatest 
glory is to be like Christ. We are to ac- 
quire such self-control that if we are in a 
conspicuous position and the cause of Christ 
demands it, we shall carry ourselves cheer- 
fully into obscurity ; if we are kings and 
the building up of God's kingdom on earth 
demands it, we shall become servants of 
servants. 

Is not the bare possibility of obtaining 
such control over ourselves a glorious thing 
to contemplate? Instead of being under the 
dominion of appetite, of passion, of evil 
habit, we should be under dominion to our 



72 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

best selves with such power of self -direction 
that so soon as any duty is demanded of us 
there shall be response throughout our en- 
tire nature. " In your knowledge supply 
self-control." 

Even this is not all that Christian culture 
demands. " In your self-control supply pa- 
tience." Christianity demands of its vota- 
ries the possession and the development of all 
the active virtues, but it does not propose to 
ignore or to neglect the passive virtues. To 
do nothing but work, to do nothing but 
wait — either of these is comparatively easy. 
The real difficulty of life is to work and 
wait. To desire ardently something which 
you feel you can by no legitimate means 
possess yourself of to-day ; to realize that 
the thing is not only in itself good, but that 
it would really make you more serviceable 
in the world to possess it ; and then to bide 
God's time not only without murmuring, 
but also throw yourself into the work of to- 
day without letting the shadow of this un- 
fulfilled desire affect the quality of that 
work, is what the Christian virtue of pa- 
tience is to enable one to do. To acquire 



CHRISTIAN CULTURE. 73 

this patience is one of the objects of Chris- 
tian discipline, one of the results of Chris- 
tian culture. Patience is not to be con- 
founded with idly, listlessly waiting for 
something to happen. It is on the contrary 
an essential element in every virtue. It is 
the conservative element ; it is that which 
preserves integrity in the midst of trials. 
Whatever else the Christian may have at- 
tained unto, if he have not patience his whole 
character is in danger of disintegration. 
His love must be patient when there are 
those providences which the Father does 
not explain to his child. His faith must be 
patient even should there come an hour so 
dark that he cries out in agony of the deep- 
est kind, " My God, my God, why hast 
thou forsaken me ? " His hope must be pa- 
tient even though disappointment be added 
to disappointment day after day. 

What a power in the world for good is 
one who under the influence of the life and 
teachings of Jesus, and the presence and 
power of the Holy Spirit, has added grace to 
grace, growing, developing, cultivating the 
character until he possesses these qualities 



74 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

not in the germ merely, but in great perfec- 
tion ! 

It would seem that Christian culture 
might end here, but it does not. To be a 
Christian is a great deal ; it is to possess the 
most completely developed character possi- 
ble, hence nothing is to be omitted which 
would serve for such development. The 
curriculum pointed out by the apostle Peter 
is the one to follow if we really desire to 
learn what it means to be a Christian. Jesus 
is the Great Teacher in the school, and the 
things of which I have been speaking are 
the things he teaches. Yes, there is more : 
" In your patience supply love for the breth- 
ren." 

You are not the only Christian. There 
is a household of faith, and there are duties 
to be recognized toward alb the children of 
the Father. There have been times in the 
history of Christianity when it was thought 
that the most perfect Christian culture could 
be obtained by going out of the world, sep- 
arating oneself from all the common pur- 
suits of life and being wholly given up to 
spiritual culture. It was forgotten, or per- 



CHRISTIAN CULTURE. 75 

haps not realized, that one very essential 
part of that culture was to be obtained by 
contact with others, and by performing 
those duties which as children of the com- 
mon Father, forming" one household of 
faith, we owe to one another. The duties 
are not to be performed in any heartless, 
perfunctory manner ; but in order that they 
may be really helpful, they are to be satu- 
rated with love. It is not the kindness 
shown to a brother, not the act performed, 
but the spirit behind the act, the love shin- 
ing through it all, that transfigures it and 
makes the one to whom the service has been 
rendered oftentimes nobler as well as hap- 
pier. 

We are not to be satisfied with showing 
love to the brethren, though. " In your love 
for the brethren supply love." There is 
another obligation. All are God's children, 
for he is the Father ; and one very necessary 
thing in the Christian life is a recognition 
of this truth, and showing that we do recog- 
nize it by loving service to those who know 
him not. 

What a glorious thing" it is to take these 



>]6 BEING A CHRISTIAN, 






characters of ours to the school of Christ 
and there learn of him those things which 
make us both serviceable to our fellow-men 
here and meet to be partakers of the inher- 
itance of the saints in light ! Perhaps it 
seems to you that you can never attain unto 
this, that the standard is too high. It is true 
that unaided such culture would be impossi- 
ble ; but if we will sit at his feet, he will 
teach us faith, that shall exclude doubt ; en- 
ergy, that is untiring in the service of God 
and man ; knowledge, that shall make us 
wise unto salvation, and enable us also to 
lead many to him ; self-control, by means of 
which the entire nature shall be responsive 
to the demands of the Father ; patience, con- 
serving every virtue and keeping us sweet 
under every trial ; love, which shall be pe- 
culiarly tender, and yet which shall be a 
mighty force in our own lives and shall 
powerfully affect for good the lives of those 
about us. Nothing demands more attention, 
nor is anything worthy of more painstaking 
care, than Christian culture, by means of 
which the character becomes symmetrical, 
becomes indeed Christlike. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Christian Inspiration. 

NO life can be a success without inspira- 
tion. There must be something al- 
ways breathing into the life to vitalize 
its energy, to enable it to endure, and also 
to persevere. The painter may be inspired 
by a passion for his art, by a desire to have 
his pictures hung in the great galleries of 
the world, by the example of those who have 
enriched the world with the products of their 
genius; but whatever mav be the source of 
his inspiration, he must have inspiration if he 
is to achieve success. 

Now the Christian life must have its in- 
spiration, and as it is the largest life and 
makes greater demands on us than any oth- 
er, inasmuch as it demands the entire self, it 
must have the largest, the noblest possible 
inspiration. As Jesus is the example, the 
ideal, the model, so also is he the inspiration 
of the Christian. u Without me ye can do 
nothing," is his word to those who follow 

(77) 



78 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 



him ; and " I can do all thing's through 
Christ which strengthened! me," is the dis- 
ciple's response to this statement. 

Perhaps from what I have said it may 
seem to you that your nature is so small 
that you can never be this great thing. You 
feel in the presence of such a one as Jesus 
that you are too utterly insignificant to hope 
to be what you believe that a Christian 
should be. With Jesus as the inspiration of 
the life, there is no need of despair. Sup- 
pose your nature is small ; he is great, and 
can make even a grain of mustard seed into 
a tree. 

Jesus is our inspiration in the develop- 
ment of Christian character. In him " mer- 
cy and truth are met together, righteousness 
and peace have kissed each other." He in- 
spires us by the perfection of his character 
to be satisfied with no low attainments. Is 
it possible for the musician to study Beetho- 
ven and then be content witlvmere jingle for 
music? Can a painter study Raphael, make 
the great colorist his master, and not catch 
at least this much of his spirit, that he will 
be unwilling to do poor work? So the 



. 



CHRISTIAN INSPIRATION. 79 

Christian, recognizing Jesus always as the 
Master, as he studies that wonderful, pow- 
erful, patient life ; that life which had one 
single supreme purpose, the highest possible 
purpose in the universe, to glorify God — can 
he study this life and come under its influ- 
ence without catching something of its in- 
spiration? But how much better if he de- 
liberately seeks it ; if the mind which was 
in Christ Jesus is the mind he seeks ; if he 
looks constantly at Jesus, the author and fin- 
isher of his faith. 

Without the inspiration of the life of the 
Master, and the consciousness of his pres- 
ence with us and his sympathy for us, the 
life which I have tried to describe as the 
Christian life is utterly impossible. With 
him all is different. No man can walk with 
him day by day without growing in grace ; 
aye, without desiring above all things to be 
like him. He inspires us by his ineffable 
sweetness 'with the deliberate purpose to cul- 
tivate ourselves up to the highest possible 
point of Christian character. In every scale 
of music there is a dominant tone, there is a 
tone that is felt as the rightful ruler of the 



8o BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

scale, there is a note that is recognised as 
the dominating influence in every chord. In 
the same way, in every life there is a domi- 
nant principle, a dominant passion often. 
The question is not, Shall we have this, or 
shall we not? We have it, and must ever 
have it. The only thing to settle is, What 
shall the dominant be? With some who are 
in the Christian life it is a doctrine ; with 
some it is a form of service ; with others 
it is some single reform. Each one of 
these no doubt has its place, but he who is 
to live the life which I mean when I speak 
of being a Christian must have Jesus for the 
dominant. No one doctrine of the Christian 
religion is sufficient for the inspiration of 
the Christian life, for there are things which 
arise in life for which the single doctrine is 
insufficient. No one grace, not even the 
grace of love, if you can conceive of it as 
dissociated from faith and hope, is sufficient 
for this inspiration. There will never come 
a time in all eternity that we will be able to 
dispense with faith in God ; nor will there 
come a time, even though the revelations may 
and doubtless will so far transcend the pres- 



CHRISTIAN INSPIRATION. 8l 

ent powers of the mind to imagine them 
that effort in that direction is worse than 
useless, and although there will be glorious 
experiences which so far transcend all that 
we can now understand even of the most 
glowing descriptions of the glories of the 
future that these descriptions will fade into 
utter insignificance in the presence of the 
reality, still we will not be able to dispense 
with hope, for as long as God is infinite 
there is something for his children beyond. 
So that no single grace is to be taken, no 
single doctrine is to be relied upon to give 
inspiration in the Christian life. Nothing 
less will suffice than Jesus himself. 

Not only is Jesus thus the inspiration in 
the development of the character, but he is 
also the inspiration in the demands that are 
made upon us in being Christians. " Con- 
sider him who endured such contradiction 
of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied 
and faint in your minds." We are inspired 
to endurance through the example of Jesus 
in the presence of trials so far greater than 
ours that what we suffer is not to be com- 
pared with what he passed through. His 
6 



82 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

very largeness of nature made it possible for 
him to be tempted in all points like as we 
are. Consider for a moment what this 
means. Each one has his temptations. 
Some trials come to my neighbor which do 
not come to me ; some to me of which he 
knows nothing. Take all the possibilities 
of temptation of a dozen of the largest na- 
tures of the men and women you know ; 
take the capacity for suffering which be- 
longs to the entire human race. Now re- 
member that Jesus is the Son of man ; re- 
member that he had within himself this ca- 
pacity to suffer, and that there is not an 
agony save that which results from failure 
of allegiance to God which he did not know. 
He was tested in all points like as we are. 
That is to say, there is not a human be- 
ing to-day who has to suffer who has not a 
sympathizer in Jesus, because he suffered in 
the same way. What an inspiration is his 
perfect fidelity in suffering to us when we 
realize this ! How close he comes to us, 
and how much lighter the burden feels when 
we can look into his face and know that he, 
whose followers we are, never for a moment 



CHRISTIAN INSPIRATION. 83 

faltered nor shifted the burden upon anoth- 
er, but instead bore the very burden of the 
world itself. 

He is our inspiration in the demands made 
upon us for fidelity in the position in which 
we are placed in the providence of God. He 
came into the world to save the world. In 
order to do this he had, in the completest 
sense, to give himself to the world. His 
gift was not at the time appreciated, but it 
was not on that account withdrawn. He 
came for the purpose of saving men by 
giving himself to them ; and if they were 
so blind to their own interests as to crucify 
him, in fidelity to his great purpose, for the 
sake of the salvation of these very people, 
he will permit them to do as thev list. The 
hardest of trials is, when one is striving to 
be true, to be misunderstood ; maligned per- 
haps by foes, and treated with a coolness 
more unendurable than malignity by friends. 
In such severe trials he and he alone can be 
our inspiration. In times of suffering, in 
times of affliction, in times of trial, in times 
when demands such as voti never expected 
are made upon you in your efforts to be 



§4 



BEING A CHRISTIAN. 



faithful to the trust committed to your care, 
in your efforts to be a Christian, look to Je- 
sus, who " for the joy that was set before 
him endured the cross, despising the shame, 
and is set down upon the right hand of 
the throne of God." " We have not a 
high priest which cannot be touched with 
a feeling of our infirmities, but was in all 
points tempted like as we are, yet without 
sin ; therefore let us come boldly to a throne 
of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and 
find grace to help in time of need." It was 
because Jesus was his inspiration that Lu- 
ther faced without fear the diet at Worms. 
It was because Jesus was his inspiration 
that John Wesley fearlessly faced the mobs, 
and in the presence of an opposition great- 
er than that which most men have been 
called upon to encounter preached the gos- 
pel of Jesus Christ and awakened an in- 
terest in pure religion and undefiled such 
that Dean Farrar, of Canterbury, says : " To 
Wesley was mainly granted the task for 
which he was set apart by the hands of in- 
visible consecration, the task which even an 
archangel might have envied him, of awak- 



CHRISTIAN INSPIRATION. 85 

ening a mighty revival of the religious life 
in those dead pulpits, in that slumbering 
Church, in that corrupt society. His was 
the religious sincerity which not only found- 
ed the Wesleyan community, but, working 
through the heart of the very Church which 
had despised him, flashed fire into her whit- 
ening embers. . . . His was the voice 
which sounding forth over the valley of dry 
bones cried, c Come from the four winds, O 
breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they 
may live.' " It was because Jesus was his in- 
spiration that the apostle Paul wrote : " We 
are pressed on every side, yet not straitened ; 
perplexed, yet not unto despair ; pursued, 
yet not forsaken ; smitten down, yet not 
destroyed. . . . For our light affliction, 
which is for the moment, worketh for us 
more and more exceedingly an eternal 
weight of glory ; while we look not at the 
things which are seen, but at the things 
which are not seen : for the things which 
are seen are temporal ; but the things which 
are not seen are eternal." To be a Chris- 
tian is impossible without this inspiration. 



CHAPTER VII. 
Christian Activity. 

AM AN is a lawyer, or a physician, or 
a merchant because he prefers be- 
ing that. He goes into it with no 
thought of any other than himself, and with 
no especial purpose aside from doing that 
which is congenial to his tastes, and in 
which he feels that he can make a success. 
Being a Christian is unlike this. A man is 
not to attempt to be a Christian simply for 
his own sake The Christian religion was 
never intended to make us so narrow that 
our only object in being Christians might 
be to save our souls. This is no doubt a 
very important thing for one to consider, 
but it is by no means all that he is to con- 
sider. 

I have thus far spoken of the Christian 
in himself, and I now desire especially to 
have you think of the Christian in reference 
to others. Being a Christian, so far as the 
world is concerned, is to show Jesus to the 
(86) 



CHRISTIAN ACTIVITY. 8j 

world. This purpose has at times been hid- 
den by other things. At one time it is lost 
in an elaborate ritual ; at another it is ob- 
scured by efforts to explain to men the na- 
ture of God, or the Trinity, or the nature 
of some other utterly inexplicable thing- 
connected with the religion of the Lord 
Jesus Christ. Do not be troubled because 
I say inexplicable thing. You know there 
are very few things that we can explain. 
If I am speaking of love, and the hearers 
ask me to explain it I cannot do so ; I can 
only ask if they have ever loved. If they 
have not, there is no language by which I 
can explain to them its real nature. I can 
show them living examples, and still thev 
will never really know until they love. No 
man can explain the nature of God, but 
every man may know God as the Father. 
No man can explain the mystery of the 
Trinity, but every man may know God as 
his Father, the Holy Spirit as his Guide, and 
Jesus Christ as his Saviour from sin and 
death. Christian activity consists in show- 
ing to the world a life in which these rela- 
tions are recognized and honored, and not 



96 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

in attempting to explain the nature of the 
great God to whom we are thus related. 

In the great desire to save the world 
Christians have expended much energy, 
sometimes wisely, sometimes unwisely. 
Oftener than otherwise the direct effort has 
been made through enunciating certain doc- 
trines and then declaring that these must be 
accepted if a man desired to be saved. The 
world has been regarded at times as a sick 
man who had a will of his own, and al- 
though told that the medicine prescribed 
was greatly needed by him, and that unless 
he took it he would surely die, yet it was 
recognized that he could refuse the dose and 
throw the bottle out of the window did he 
choose to do so. At other times the world 
has been regarded as a child, and the at- 
tempt made to give the medicine without 
asking any questions or recognizing any 
right to do anything save swallow the dose. 
This process might serve to create a uni- 
form creed which, when accepted by a suffi- 
cient number of people, is called orthodoxy, 
but it is far from accomplishing the great 
work that the Master desires his followers 



CHRISTIAN ACTIVITY. 89 

to perform. He was by no means indiffer- 
ent to what was believed by the people to 
whom he came, but he did not undertake to 
save the world by having the world swallow 
any number of articles of faith. He lived 
his life before men, and then pointing to it, 
to his active beneficence, he told them to be- 
lieve on the Father who cared for them. It 
was first the life, and then the teaching. 
Being a Christian is living a life, for that is 
after all the most effective way of teaching. 
Suppose a dozen men are standing watch- 
ing a fire. The fire company is active, and 
every effort is made to extinguish the flames, 
but it is soon seen that the house is doomed. 
Presently at the third -story window a little 
child appears. She had been lost sight of, 
each member of the family thinking that 
she was with some other. The stairs are 
already in an exceedingly dangerous condi- 
tion, and to go after the child is to risk life. 
Now one of the dozen men of whom I have 
spoken begins to talk. He sees the child as 
do the others. He is a very eloquent man, 
and he begins to speak of heroism. He de- 
fines the word, telling first what it is not, 



90 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

and then what it is. He begins to illustrate 
it. He urges men to display heroism on all 
occasions where such a display is possible, 
and in the meantime the roof falls in and 
the child is burned to death. Those who 
heard him said afterwards that his words 
were very eloquent, but we notice that he 
did nothing heroic, and there was not power 
enough in his eloquence to make a single 
one of those men risk his life to save the 
child. Suppose, however, instead of discuss- 
ing the nature of heroism, so soon as the 
child's danger is recognized, without a word 
to anyone, he rushes into the house, snatches 
the little, one from the very jaws of death, 
and brings it in safety to the mother. Will 
not the single act do more to promote a 
spirit of heroism in the people about him 
than the best definition either he or another 
could possibly give ? It is no doubt very nec- 
essary for the Church to have a creed ; theo- 
logians must have a creed ; some individuals 
need to have clearly defined ideas of what 
they do and what they do not believe ; but 
what the world wants is life, and being a 
Christian meets this want. 



CHRISTIAN ACTIVITY. 91 

Christian activity is simply the outward 
evidence of the fact that one is a Christian. 
It was the life of Jesus which was the light 
of men. It is by manifesting the Christ-life 
that men are to be saved. A man may get 
away from arguments about hell or heaven, 
his intellect may refuse to entertain the no- 
tion of a God who suffers and dies upon a 
cross, but no man can get away from the 
logic of nobility of character. Gentleness, 
kindness, unselfishness, devotion even to the 
ungrateful, this is an argument from which 
the world cannot escape. So we find men 
w^ho profess to despise the Church and to ad- 
mire and even to reverence Jesus. If they 
are honest, then they can be won for him by 
his life manifesting itself actively in the 
lives of his followers Being a Christian 
means to go into a home where there is need 
of sympathy and making the inmates feel 
that in you they have a friend. This can 
never be done by any mere words. It can- 
not be done by ostentatious gifts. He who 
does these things must not lift up his voice, 
nor crv, nor be heard in the streets. There 
arc those in the world who have never seen 



0/2 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

anything but the world's back. The cold 
shoulder has been turned to them from the 
hour of their birth. They were cursed with 
the first conscious breath of the mother 
when she brought them into being. If they 
have any father, they know not who or 
where he is. They have been brought up 
to regard society as their enemy and all men 
and women as legitimate prey. Being a 
Christian means showing to such people 
that God loves even them, not by telling them 
so in so man\' words, but by living a life of 
love toward them. The problem of home 
and foreign missions is not the problem of 
men, or of orthodoxy, or of money, but of 
life. 

The Christian life is the complete life ; 
every other is but a fragmentary life. 
Christian activity is to manifest itself in 
efforts to show these broken lives how they 
can be made whole, these fragmentary lives 
how to find and where to find completeness. 
A man comes one day into an old shop, and 
there in a corner he finds some strangely- 
shaped pieces of wood. He looks at them 
eagerly, and asks the owner of the shop if he 



CHRISTIAN ACTIVITY. 93 

will sell them. " Oh, yes," says the owner, 
not at all understanding the light in the 
man's face nor the eagerness of his tones, 
" I will sell them for a small sum ; they are 
only curious bits of wood, not worth much, 
I suppose." The stranger pays the few 
pennies asked, takes the bits of wood in his 
hands as tenderly as though he were carry- 
ing a sleeping babe, and goes on his way. 
A few days after he comes back to the shop. 
Taking a violin from beneath his cloak he 
begins to play. Such tones, such music ! 
The old man has never heard anything like 
it in his life. It seems to him that the in- 
strument must have within itself some 
strange power, and that the man playing it 
must be more than a man. He is by turns 
thrilled with the wildest emotion, compelled 
to laugh, compelled to weep, compelled 
merely to listen breathless to music which 
seems to fill the air of the old shop with the 
radiance of heaven, and he peers into the 
corners almost expecting to see angel faces 
looking into his. Suddenly he seems to be 
swept from his feet. He is carried away 
out into the deep woods, and as the rippling 



94 BEING A CHRISTIAN. 

notes fall from the violin bow he seems to be 
listening to the dashing of a waterfall and to 
see a rainbow form in the pure white spray. 
Presently the music ceases, and the old man 
asks where the violinist obtained an instru- 
ment of such marvelous power and sweet- 
ness. Looking lovingly at his instrument 
the musician says : " It is the one I got from 
you. The broken pieces of wood are the 
violin ; I merely put them together again." 

So it is when Jesus comes into the life and 
takes possession of it. He can take the 
broken fragments of a life, a life which the 
world has cast aside perhaps as worthless, 
and, breathing into it his Holy Spirit, enable 
it to utter heaven's own harmonies. Chris- 
tian activity is that work in his name and 
under the inspiration of his Spirit which 
goes into the dark corners and dust-heaps 
of the world and brings forth instruments to 
praise him. What a glorious thing it is to 
think that after having done this work and 
gone to our reward there will perhaps break 
upon the ear music far sweeter than any- 
thing ever known before, and one will come 
whose face has something strangely famil- 



CHRISTIAN ACTIVITY. 95 

iar, and yet so bright that we do not realize 
that it has ever been seen before by us, and 
will say : "All this music is the result of 
your work. You were a Christian, you 
worked for the Master ; I was an old violin 
you took out of the dust-heap in a dark 
alley on earth, and others hearing the music 
you taught me to sing carried on the strain 
until this multitude to-day sings the song of 
Moses and the Lamb." 



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